Page 25

REID

T hat motherfucker locked me in the safe room or panic room whatever he wants to fucking call it.

I squeeze my eyes shut tight as the nauseating dizziness overtakes me, the thrum of the anxiety of being shut in a room without any escape.

Scully tries to calm me, pressing her slight black body against my face when I fall to the floor in a ball.

My heart is pounding so hard in my chest that I assume it’s going to stop beating altogether.

This is it. I die in a safe room instead of by taking random pills, by seeking out dangerous men in clubs that only see me as a fleeting good time. This is how I die and how it all ends.

Tears fall from my eyes as I weep all my fears away. Dante will come back for me. He won’t leave me locked in here forever. Dante loves me, I know it. The way he looks at me has to be love. Dante… come back.

“Please,” I whimper into Scully’s soft fur.

She purrs loudly as she rubs all over my face and oddly it distracts me enough for my heart to start to slow, for the tears to turn to a gentle stream instead of a torrential river.

How long will it take him to come back for me?

Why is someone trying to get to him through me?

Jesus, if someone hurt Mason and I survive…

what a cruel twist of fate. He survives childhood cancer just to die because I got twisted up in something that I’m not able to handle.

I roll over onto my back gasping, blinking up at the bright white lights that flicker in the room that’s no longer closing in on me.

Scully moves from my face to lie on my chest, kneading biscuits on my chest with her little bean paws.

God. I curl my fingers into her soft fur, probably harder than she’ll like, no doubt she’ll hiss and claw soon.

But she doesn’t. No. Scully just purrs louder to distract me, nuzzling her soft head against my chin until I can’t be anything but solely focused on her. Smart girl.

“Almost like you have experience with this stuff, girl.” I pet her slowly, letting the feel of her hair against my sweaty palm distract me from my current predicament.

Gradually, as I pet her, my heart slows enough that the anxiety of being stuck disappears just enough to make me feel less insane than a few moments ago.

Maybe being trapped here won’t kill me. I still hate it, I’m still going to murder Dante for this, but maybe I can live through this.

A sound from outside the door has me scrambling up, clutching Scully in my arms. She meows loudly at the sudden movement, and I scramble into the corner to protect my back.

My anxiety ramps up again when I hear furious shouting and what sounds like banging coming from outside.

Oh. That’s not Dante. That’s not the boys.

They would’ve opened the door and let me out already.

Scully seems to know it too because her claws press into me, making me hiss at the sensation.

The lights flicker just as the door slips open to reveal two very large men with black masks over their faces.

They smell disgusting. I am totally fucked.

One inches forward, eyes lit up with the glory of a win.

Do I fight or do I give in? What’s the easiest way to avoid murder?

Instincts say for me to bite their balls off, but that’s probably not the best way to go about this.

The man lunges for me before I can even come up with another escape idea. Scully yowls loudly, hisses, and bites the guy, but he just grabs her by the scuff and slings her against the wall of the panic room.

“No!” I scream, terrified that he just hurt Scully. I can’t see her over his back, but I glare at him in fury that I can’t hold back any longer. “You’re fucking with the wrong people.”

“Give me a break,” the guy sneers, just before jabbing a needle into my neck.

Oh no.

I try to lunge at him, but my arms are too weak, and the walls are seriously closing in now. The last thing I hear is the men’s soft laughter as I fall into a hazy, scary sort of sleep. Dante…

Drip. Drip. Drip.

The world is a blurry mess when I blink my eyes open.

Everything hurts. Not in the fun way I’ve gotten used to either.

I kind of feel like how I used to feel after taking those random pills at clubs.

Wrung out and achy. The urge to puke is so overwhelming suddenly that I roll over onto my side and hurl straight up stomach acid. Yuck.

Wait. Why am I on the ground? Why is it concrete?

I squeeze my eyes shut tightly, then carefully sit up despite the ache of my muscles.

My arm catches on something, and when I look down, it’s to find I’m chained to a metal pillar in the middle of some large room.

Squinting against the bright light, I follow the length of the pillar to the ceiling above that’s got holes in it from age.

So much rust. When’s the last time I had my tetanus shot?

Mason is going to be furious if I die from tetanus, an easily preventative disease.

I take in my surroundings, wondering where the fuck I am and how I got here.

It appears I’m in a beaten-down and ancient warehouse.

Mostly empty, since it’s just me, the holes in the ceiling, and the handcuffs chaining me to the metal pillar.

Now the small pile of stomach acid to my right.

Where the hell am I? I don’t remember anything from the night before.

Well. I remember Dante fucking me into oblivion, then everything gets kind of blurry after that.

But that’s kind of normal considering the shit we get up to.

The warehouse door opens with a rusty metallic sound that makes me cringe, to reveal a large guy wearing a ski mask. Oh. That does not inspire good feelings. He stops a few feet away from me, nose scrunched in obvious distaste at the smell of the vomit beside me.

“Oops?”

The guy scowls. “I’m not cleaning that up.”

“No problem, just unlock the handcuffs and I’ll do it.”

“Fat chance,” the guy drawls, foot tapping as he stares impatiently down at me. “You’re collateral.”

He tosses a bottle of water and a granola bar at my feet, just barely missing the puddle of puke. I reach out for it with my free hand, then glance up at him.

“I’m not good collateral. No one’s going to miss me.”

“Not even Dante?”

My blood goes cold. So that’s the game we’re playing now. “ I don’t know who you’re talking about. But I’ll tell you that torture won’t work on me because I like that shit.”

“Weirdo,” the guy mumbles before marching out the warehouse doors.

Jeez. I tentatively sip at the water, then make myself eat a few bites of the granola. Even though they said I’m not going to be hurt, I don’t know when they’ll change their mind. This could be the last meal I get for a long time for all I know. I wonder if they have cameras in here watching me?

I shift around on the cold concrete, letting the handcuffed arm hang loosely at my side while picking at the granola bar.

When I shift, I feel the telltale lump of my cell phone in my back pocket.

Are these guys total fucking idiots? My phone is still on me.

I wonder how long it’ll take Dante to realize that I put software on his phone so that I can track him.

And that I also put it on my phone so that he can track me.

See, this is what I get for being sneaky.

If I had just told him I was being a possessive weirdo, he’d probably already be on his way here to save me.

The warehouse door slams open again to reveal a different guy than last time. This guy is huge, built like a brick house, and he’s carrying a steel briefcase. That’s odd. Suddenly, I kind of regret eating and drinking because I have the urge to hurl again.

The man kneels slowly at my feet, movements precise and military-like with their efficiency.

He unlocks the suitcase to reveal surgical instruments.

Oh no. I am way out of my league here.No amount of shit talking or sarcasm is going to make this end remotely well for me.

Suddenly I really miss Dante and Mason. Although the idea of Mason being trapped in a place like this makes me feel even sicker, because it would probably send him into cardiac arrest .

“Do you want to know what their nickname for me is?” the guy asks with a thick Russian accent.

“Hot stuff?” I say with a crack in my voice.

The guy lifts his head to grin at me. “My second nickname, I guess. I am The Carver, but you can call me Claude. Very nice to meet you, Reid. This will be easy if you do not struggle. Do you understand?”

“Do I look like someone that’s not going to struggle?”

Claude tilts his head like a predator eyeing their prey. “No, perhaps you don’t. But I will enjoy it more if you struggle, okay?”

“I don’t know anything . There is no point in torturing me.”

Claude hums before tugging a very sharp-looking scalpel out of the traveling torture suitcase. He leans forward a little, gaze sweeping over me in a way that makes my skin prickle with unease.

“Stand,” Claude orders.

I do not stand. His eyes squint dangerously before he grabs my arm and yanks me up.

Holding the scalpel against my throat, he presses his hands over me, grunting in victory when he finds my phone.

He slams it to the ground, then crunches it under his steel-toed boot.

I mewl softly, suddenly realizing I have lost my last fucking hope of being found.

Claude lifts his head and grins through his mask. “I am dealing with fucking amateurs here, but I am not paid big money to allow little mistakes. Now for each lie you tell me, I will cut either a very important appendage off or slice into that very pretty skin. Do you understand?”